Managed Lands Quail Permit?

In my opinion, this proposal is of questionable need and merit, and it couldn't have come along at a poorer time. The Quail Technical Committee shot it down like a lead balloon when it was brought up back in Oct' 04. How do your conservation partners react to a program for doubling bag limits when the caucus was convened to address quail decline? Talk about your mixed signals! But the idea must be vigorously rooted within TPW, as it keeps resurfacing like johnsongrass.

I'm all for incentives to landowners to get quail management adopted on more of Texas, but I do not believe this will be an incentive to more than 0.1% of landowners in Texas. I've never met a landowner in TX who thought that either season length or bag limit of quail needed to be increased; indeed it's usually just the opposite sentiment. Creating a permit (even if its totally voluntary) for such a small minority sends the wrong message to the majority of private landowners, who control the majority of the state's quail habitat.

When you keep in mind that today's quail hunter is an old, white male who for the most part has outgrown the weight of his game vest as a measure of a successful quail hunt, I doubt the double-bag limit will garner much support from the hunting community. Surely any outfitter who's looking forward to the entire season (or the next year) will be against it.

We have no quick and dirty way to estimate preseason population levels, as I understand would be prerequisite to this permit. The wording of the proposal doesn't put any needed credentials on the accuracy of the count, just that a preseason population estimate be conducted. And the bag limit is just part of the quail mortality iceberg - wounding loss typically ranges from 15 to 30%, so a bag of 30 birds would be a loss to the population of 35 to 40 birds a day.

I believe an attractive gate sign proclaiming the ranch as a "Texas Quail Steward" would be incentive enough to landowners w/o the baggage associated with an incentive for doubling the bag limit. Let's keep any incentives habitat-based, not limit-based.

Finally, do we really want to go down the deer road of a Pandora's box of permits?? Just because the MLDP found a biological niche with deer doesn't mean it is necessary for quail. A four-month long season should allow anyone ample opportunities for "doe hunts".

Quail are dear, not deer. EVERY quail is a trophy; let's leave it at that.

TPW will be taking public comment on the proposal during March. The wording for the proposal follows. I encourage you to speak your piece on this proposal to TPW.

Comments should be directed to:

Robert Macdonald
Regulations Coordinator
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
512-389-4775
robert.macdonald@tpwd.state.tx.us

DR

(c) Quail. No person may exceed the bag or possession limits established in §65.62(b) and (c) of this title (relating to Quail: Open Seasons, Bag, and Possession Limits) unless the quail are taken on a property for which the department has approved a WMP specifically addressing quail as provided in this subsection.

(4) A person in possession of more than 45 quail anywhere other than the property on which the quail were harvested shall also possess a completed, department-supplied affidavit signed by the landowner of the property where the person harvested the quail.

Doubling limit of quail on the board
Goal of proposal is to reward landowners for land management

By Mike Leggett

AMERICASTATESMAN STAFF

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Thirty quail a day sounds pretty good to a quail hunter.

It can sound real good when it's one of those special years like the season that closes today.

All over Texas in 2004-05 -- when there's been a covey under every bush and you feel like playing catch-up on the beady-eyed little birds for all the arid seasons you couldn't use up a box of 7 1/2s to save your life -- 30 birds doesn't sound so crazy.

Then again, maybe it does.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is planning to offer it up as a possible new regulation for some landowners starting with the 2005-06 quail season. To be called the Managed Lands Quail Permit, the new proposal would allow landowners with approved wildlife management plans and ongoing habitat enhancement programs legally to kill as many as 30 quail per day, twice the standard statewide limit.

Most quail hunters don't think much about the daily bag limit, since even in good times 15-bird days are rare. It takes a lot of work and luck for a truckload of four hunters to kill 60 birds in a day. And honestly, game wardens and hunters don't pay much attention to the limit when there are conditions conducive to killing lots of quail.

Any truthful, serious quail hunter will tell you that everybody just throws their birds onto the truck in one big pile and then counts the bodies at noon and at sundown. On top of that, few hunters ever get checked by game wardens during a quail hunt, especially private land, so that the numbers really don't matter.

We're not suggesting rampant law-breaking here, just pointing out that confirmed quail violations are rare. In 2004-05, according to warden David Sinclair, chief of wildlife enforcement for TPWD, during the past three seasons, there have been 181 violations that involved quail. Only two of those, though, were for too many birds in the bag. The rest were for hunting out of season or without a license.

So why? Why is this important enough now to sling the proposal in at the last minute without any discussion by the commission in a public meeting? Although the Parks and Wildlife commission approved a slate of hunting and fishing proposals for 2005-06 during a late January meeting, the quail permit was not on the list. However, it has now been sent to the Texas Register for publication and TPWD staff will be getting public input during statewide hearings during March.

"I think it's a great idea," said Bob Cook, Parks and Wildlife executive director. Cook also is a wildlife biologist who once headed the Wildlife Division at TPWD during the period in which such regulations as Antlerless Deer Control Permits and Managed Lands Deer Permits were being developed and implemented. He said he first suggested the change to staff several years ago. There wasn't much enthusiasm for it then, but times have changed.

"I've been a strong supporter of it. Finding ways to reward hunters and landowners for doing a good job of managing their land and wildlife resources is a really good way to go," Cook said. "We've got people managing for quail now and quail are not on the decline in country where people are managing for quail. It's a species that is very whimsically attached to rainfall and just the right time."

Mike Berger, Wildlife Division director for TPWD, explained that the new permit, if approved, would allow landowners and managers to implement a slate of land and habitat manipulations that will include controlled burning, planting of native grasses, rotational grazing, water conservation and brush management. Anyone approved for the permit would have to complete a wildlife management plan that would survey the estimated number of quail and the recommended harvest for each season.

Since not exceeding the season's recommended total would be the only measuring stick for harvest, quail hunters wouldn't need to stick with the 15-per day statewide limit, Berger said. "Biologically, it doesn't matter when you take those birds," he said. "It's just like the harvest recommendations for deer (in the Managed Lands Deer Permit): if you wanted to take more in a day, you would have that flexibility."

However, Berger said Parks and Wildlife would not use any expanded bag limit on its own premier quail hunting areas such as the Chaparral Wildlife Management Area and the Matador WMA. Berger said that biologists would hope to spread out the harvest over as much of a season as possible to allow a maximum of hunters to take part.

But Terry Lee, of George West, who runs multiple trucks and more than 100 birds dogs for quail hunters all over South Texas, said he thinks TPWD should be looking at more restrictions, even though it would ultimately hurt his business. "They need to cut this season back a month and go to 12 birds a day," Lee said. "Very seldom do you ever reach a limit on wild birds anyway."

That's one of the arguments for allowing the larger limits in some instance, however. The average daily take is fewer than 5 birds and most people never kill a limit, so it shouldn't make any difference. "What ever happened to the gentleman's side of the sport?" Lee asked. "For every three birds you pick up, there's at least one and probably two dead in the field. People don't take that into consideration."

"We know what it takes to grow quail and I think a prudent harvest is a big part of it," Lee said. "If they're alive now, they've made it and they're going to be here to nest in the spring."

Cook, however, said the larger bag limits could be the incentive that springboards quail management further toward the forefront in Texas. "I'd like to see us bring in some people who would put new country into quail management," Cook said. "The key is some sort of long-term habitat protection. It gets people more involved and thinking about quail."